“I know, dear,” Theodora said gently, for she read the girl’s irritation in her voice.  “Allyn isn’t always as polite as he might be; but we must try not to be too sensitive.”

“I’m not sensitive,” Cicely said forlornly.  “I like him, though, and I want him to like me, and it hurts my feelings when he doesn’t.”

“How long has the present feud lasted?” Billy inquired.

“Almost ten days.  It’s the worst one yet, and it started from nothing.  I know he is your brother, Cousin Theodora; but—­I really don’t think it’s all my fault.”

“No.”  Theodora’s voice suggested no mental reservation.  “I know how it is, Cicely.  Allyn has been my baby and my boy; but, much as I love him, I can’t help seeing that he is cantankerous and cross-grained at times.  But it is only at times, Cis; it isn’t chronic.”

“I wish it were.  Then I shouldn’t mind it so much.  But when he isn’t cross, he is one of the jolliest boys I have ever known.  That’s the worst of it, for I miss him so, when we squabble.  When we are on terms, I don’t care about anybody else; and so, when we are off, it leaves me all alone.”

“When I squabbled with your Cousin Theodora,” Billy said oracularly; “I generally felt I had done my share, and I left her to do the making up.”

“So I observed,” his wife answered; but Cicely was too much absorbed in her subject to heed the parenthesis.

“I’m willing to make up,” she said, as she twisted Melchisedek’s ears with an absent-minded fervor which caused the sufferer to whimper; “but how can I?  He just goes off his way, and leaves me to go mine.  I hate to tag him; besides, I don’t know but he really wants to get rid of me.  Hush, Melchisedek!  Don’t whine.  I didn’t intend to hurt you.  That’s what I meant, Cousin Ted, when I asked you about following him up.  How far is it safe to go?”

“Till you get there,” Mr. Farrington replied.

“Billy!” his wife remonstrated.

“All right, Ted; but I’m not altogether joking.  I know boys better than you do.  It’s not easy for them to come down off their dignity; and, nine times out of ten, when they scowl the most darkly, they are really wishing that they knew how to come to terms.  I must go down town now, Cis; but my parting advice to you is to corner Allyn and bully him into shaking hands.  The boy is an ungracious cub; but he is sound at the core, and I honestly think he is fond of you in his dumb way.”

After he had left them alone, Cicely dropped down on the floor at Theodora’s feet.

“Life isn’t a straight line; it’s horribly squirmy,” she said, and her voice vas unusually grave.

Theodora drew the brown head against her knee.

“What is it, dear?” she asked.

“It’s only Allyn.  I don’t know what the reason is that we can’t get on.  I’ve known lots of boys, and I never squabbled with any of them before.  And I don’t know why I care so much.  Sometimes I really think I am good for Allyn and can help him out, and I am disappointed because he won’t let me; but I more than half think it is only my vanity, after all.”